When hiring staff or developers for Publictivity, we like to consider all angles:  experience, education, whether they fit our company culture, location, etc.  It would be dumb not to.  However, depending on the position that we’re trying to fill, some of those things become less important.  For example, if a person approaches us for a developer position and has 10 years of experience, great references, a flawless code sample, but doesn’t necessarily have the most appealing educational background in computer science, we’re still going to give the guy (or girl) a good look.  On the other hand, if we were looking for a CFO, education does matter.  So, here is the question:  Does a degree with a specialization in public relations really matter when hiring staff for your agency?

 

Of course, there are two sides to every issue, but my opinion is that it should not weigh too much on your hiring decision.  While PR certainly has its rules, strategy, and finesse points that could be taught in a book and class, PR is more so about a person’s ability to communicate and spread information effectively, to a targeted audience, through some sort of medium.  This relies heavily on personality and shrewdness of an individual.  It takes a certain kind of person to be a PR professional, so learning how to approach a PR campaign or make a pitch in a book won’t be all that helpful.  My point is, if you are looking to hire additional staff for your agency, look for educational backgrounds that will diversify the skill set of your staff as a whole.

 

What type of educational backgrounds, you ask?  How about someone with a specialization in Social Computing as part of a Master in Science Information?  The University of Michigan has a great looking program that offers this degree.  As part of it, students learn the ins and outs of social networking, user generated content, and online sharing.  The program doesn’t seem to be too technical in nature, and puts heavy emphasis on the study of human relationships and information sharing on the web.  While digging around on the subject, I ran into this Wall Street Journal article that pointed out that the Social Computing programs “tend to draw as much from the sociology, psychology and communications departments as they do from more traditional computer science classes.”

 

Also another good thing to look for is experience in Social Media, which is related, but not exactly the same thing.  A lot of universities are beginning to catch on to this demand and offering courses on the subject.  For example, our friend, Alex de Carvalho, teaches a course at the University of Miami that focuses on Web 2.0 and Social Media for collaboration, community building, and citizen journalism (course # CVJ 596).

 

With or without a formal degree, it’s imperative for a PR professional in this new landscape to understand how new media and online social interactions affect their industry.  I recommend looking for someone who understands this, whether they have good personal and professional experience on the subject, or have learned the ins and outs of it via the classroom.

 

Check out this post by a UK public relations blogger.  He seems to feel the same way, only more “passionately”.

Blogging has hit the mainstream when it comes to making PR pitches.  Most of the PR professionals we have worked with or talked to, always have a strategy for hitting the blogs. Publications like TechCrunch can make or break a startup, or at least get them a lot of initial traction.  A lot of people have asked us, “So how should I pitch bloggers?” So here is a list of tips and hints, along with a few good must read articles related to the subject.

1.  Familiarize Yourself With The Blog-  Find out who the main staff is, what they do, and possibly what they may have done in the past.  Most Gawker blogs list this on the left.  Get a feel for what they write about and certain hot points.  Every blogger has certain companies or technologies they find to be interesting.  For Example, I love enterprise 2.0.  Much more likely to get me to write about Enterprise 2.0 versus An MP3 player.  
2. Don’t Boilerplate and Mess It Up-  Do you know how many times a blogger has gotten an invite to review a product, but the name and contact info is for another blogger?  Many bloggers are used to boilerplate press releases, but at least have some dignity with it.  Try to avoid boilerplate and standardized emails if you can.
3.  Be Relevant- Please please have a clue about what the blog is.  Do not pitch a gadget review to an Enterprise 2.0 blog or vice versa.  Check editorial calendars if the blog has it.  This is more likely to happen on larger blogs like CNET.  Also see what stories they’re running, or try to read posts for what they might be looking for.  For example, Read/Write/Web asked for Facebook collaboration tools.  
4.  Offering a Product Trial Does Not= A Positive Review- Guess what?  Free stuff doesn’t buy good coverage.  In some cases, it might even backfire on you.  Remember the Acer/Vista/Ferrari laptop scandal from last year?  .  Also be sure to answer any technical questions they may have.  You don’t want to be slammed just because of simple miscommunication.
5.  Have a takeaway- Be short and to the point.  Let them know next steps, how they can contact you, and anything else that is relevant.  This applies to all emails in business, but especially with PR.  If you leave things too open ended, they will be ignored.
6.  Provide attached background info (not too large)-  Attach or link to media files, supplemental materials, and more.  Don’t make the email too large, as it becomes overwhelming.  You’re one of 100 on a good day for some blogs.  Get the good vibes going, not the “this sucks” vibes.
7.  Send to the right person- Chris Anderson made this very clear with his PR “Blacklist”.  Tons of PR pros were sending emails to the editor, instead of the right contact at Wired.  Certain bloggers cover certain topics on blogs.  Don’t end up on a blog blacklist, it’s not a pretty place to be.

Some Additional Posts to Read : 

Blogger Relations 201

 Elevator Pitch on PR and Blogging  Bad Pitch Blog PR Wiki-  Tips on Pitching Bloggers Blogger Relations 101